River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild WestThe world as we know it today began in California in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. This extraordinary assertion is at the heart of Rebecca Solnit's brilliant new work of cultural history. Weaving together biography, history, and fascinating insights into art, technology, landscape, and philosophy, Solnit has created a boldly original portrait of America on the threshold of modernity. During a period of feverish creativity that commenced in 1872, Eadweard Muybridge succeeded for the first time in capturing and reanimating high-speed motion on film-the crucial breakthrough that made movies possible. He also continued his series of breathtaking photographs of the monumental landscape of the American West, served as official photographer of the grueling war against the Modoc Indians, and, in a blaze of publicity, stood trial for the murder of his wife's lover. In Solnit's taut, compelling narrative, Muybridge's life becomes a lens for a larger story about the transformation of time and space in the nineteenth century. With dazzling erudition and a rare mastery of the interlocking histories of art, technology, politics, and commerce, Solnit shows how the peculiar freedoms and opportunities of post-Civil War California led directly to the two industries-Hollywood and Silicon Valley-that have most powerfully defined the contemporary world. River of Shadowsis Solnit's most captivating book yet-wide- ranging in its allusions, daring in its connections, always surprising in its conclusions. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - snash - LibraryThingThis is a biography of an early photographer and then a whole lot more; the west, industrialization, Stanford, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Captain Jack. Wild and rambling, making sweeping surprising connections. All great fun and thought provoking. Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - gregorybrown - LibraryThingBasically amazing. Rebecca Solnit surveys Eadweard Muybridge's life and career, tracing the changing effects of space and time throughout his photographic work. At the same time, Muybridge is but a ... Read full review
Other editions - View all
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West Rebecca Solnit Limited preview - 2004 |
River Of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West Rebecca Solnit No preview available - 2004 |
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West Rebecca Solnit No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
album Alta American Animals in Motion annihilation artists became Bierstadt Bradley and Rulofson bridge's Bulletin California camera Captain Jack Carleton Watkins Central America Central Pacific Central Pacific Railroad century Chronicle cinema clock clouds Eadweard Muybridge Edison electrical film Flora frame of stereo gallery Ghost Dance glaciers Haas Hooker Jim horses Huntington Papers images Indians industry instantaneous invention July Kingston Scrapbook land landscape photographs Larkyns later Lava Beds Leland Stanford live look mammoth plates mammoth-plate Marey miles Modocs motion studies mountains moving Muggeridge Muybridge photographed Muybridge's negatives Nevada never newspaper Nob Hill Occident Pacific Railroad paintings Palo Alto panorama of San Philadelphia Photographer River Sacramento San Francisco seems sequence Sierra Silicon Valley Sitting Bull space speed Stanford theater tion took train transcontinental railroad trotting Tule Lake University views Watkins West women wrote York Yosemite Valley zoopraxiscope
Bibliographic information
| Title | River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West |
| Author | Rebecca Solnit |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Viking, 2003 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Dec 18, 2007 |
| ISBN | 0670031763, 9780670031764 |
| Length | 305 pages |
| Subjects | › Biography & Autobiography / Historical |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |